nph

I have to ask. This morning the temp outside dropped to 32 for a little while, dont know how long really, but I could see some frost on the cars outside but nothing on the grass etc.
The thing is that since the weather service had promised a min of no less than 39 the whole night I took out all my pups and sensitive plants from the garage and put them outside since Saturday. Oranges, Queen palm and 10+ pups that was supposed to be my next mat of bananas.

What is the chance that they have survived this unexpected drop to 32?

It is ironic, I pulled them in several nights when the temp was far from 32 and the weather service had warned for lower temps. This time there was no warning so I had even turned off the warm air fan in my little mini green house where i have a few sensitive plants... Shoot, I feel so stupid!!
Luckily it will be 70 today and tomorrow here in Dallas.

What do you think, are they toast now or you think I have a chance they will live?

DoctorSteve

I think the oranges should be fine. Never had any problems here with potted oranges at 32 or even down to 25-28. That is about as cold as we get, and that is cold here.

I don't know about your pups though. My bananas suffer leaf damage (dead) at 32, petiole damage at 30, and pseudostem damage below that. Those are all fairly big and in the ground though. Good luck with them. I am guessing you will find out yourself before most people on here will have a chance to answer.

harveyc

You didn't mention frost. It seems to me that the real damage occurs when we get frost before 10pm. At 32F I rarely see any damage at all. How warm was it during the day before? That's also a factor since if it was fairly warm everything would have started out warm and likely not go down to 32F (just the air).

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nph

I saw frost on cars only. We hit high 60s the day before do this was unexpected!

sjh711

I feel your pain. We had a freeze about 10 days ago and they are just now recovering. 32* and bye bye leaves.

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oakshadows

Up the road from Stan we lost a few leaves but that is all. Will keep trying to raise the brix number, sugar content, so the plants might survive some lower temps.

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"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."

sjh711

Noah, can you explain that? Thanks.

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oakshadows

Brix is the percentage of sugar in a plant. The higher it is in some plants the tastier they are, also lowers the freeze temps. Raising the brix may allow some plants to survive temps several degrees below what takes them out. Here in our zone a few degrees can mean a lot to the plants. It takes a while to get your soil to accept the needed ingredients but not anything that is expensive just some labor involved. We use composted cow manure and also composted pine leaves and cones, along with trace minerals that we get from chelated clay and also sea salt. The clay and sea salt contain most of the known minerals and will improve the soil. Putting back what has leeched out and used up by plants is a good way to improve the harvest of any plant.
I'm not too scientific and can't explain much more but it all sounds good to us and shortly we will find out the results. Will try to post results. The last freeze, althought short, only got a few leaves. Hopefully we won't get any freezing weather any more this year.

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"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."

oakshadows

This site will do much better than I to explain the idea. A bit lengthy but worth the read, at least I think so. The Dirt Doctor has a lot of good info for the organic minded gardener.

Milk Raw - Applying to the Soil - Natural Organic Home Garden Health Howard Garrett Dirt Doctor

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"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."